Catherine McKenna, the Liberal candidate for Ottawa Centre in the upcoming federal election, got an early start Wednesday by vehemently taking sides on an Ottawa issue that has generated national headlines: The proposed location of the Harper government’s planned Victims of Communism Memorial.

“It’s appalling,” said McKenna of the government’s decision to change the location of the proposed monument — initially it was meant to be built at the Garden of the Provinces and Territories — just a two minute walk from the site that was decided in secret, between the Supreme Court of Canada and the Library and Archives building.

McKenna said if the Liberal Party is elected the initial plan for the site — the construction of a federal court building named after Pierre Elliott Trudeau — will replace the proposed monument.

McKenna said she has knocked on 30,000 doors canvassing over the past few months, and she’s “heard unanimously that people are angry,” about the proposed site for the monument.

Some of those supporters showed up today.

“It’s too big and it’s taking up a very important spot. That monument — that cause — does not warrant to be on this property,” said Ottawa resident Alison Bennett.

Another resident, William Brennan, echoed those remarks. “It should be at the Garden of Provinces and Territories,” he said.

“I look at it as something the Conservatives can wave around and say ‘look what we’ve done’. It’s something Stephen Harper wants,” Brennan added.

Joined by Barry Padolsky, an architect who has been very vocal in opposition to the proposed site, McKenna said there have to be major changes to the National Capital Commission’s board — which she says is not transparent in its decision making, and not diverse.

McKenna said she plans to speak at the NCC’s public meeting scheduled for Thursday evening, and she had to have her question — which she will be permitted to ask — vetted in advance.

From the proposed site, the group of 25 walked to the Garden of Provinces and Territories — the site originally proposed for the monument, where Ottawa City Councillor Tobi Nussbaum joined the group. Nussbaum’s motion to ask the government to change the proposed site passed with a vote of 16-8 in May.

i thought the first images printed made it look ugly.
Then I saw even more detailed pictures and it looked not only ugly, but disturbingly ugly.
It seems really baffling unless you believe the simple explanation that some really spoiled, entitled individuals want to put it there to get back at someone they don’t like, whether that’s the Supreme Court or Pierre Trudeau.